Though the verdict was already reached in a recent federal trial handling the question of financial penalties on Donald Trump for upheld allegations from writer E. Jean Carroll of defamation, controversies continue.
Though Trump attorney Alina Habba subsequently changed course, she complained in court about what she bizarrely characterized as suggestions of a mentor-like relationship between the judge and Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan decades prior around the two of them briefly working at the same law firm for the same period. Kaplan responded to the judge with arguments wrecking any push for turning back the clock on some of the proceedings, saying she didn’t recall even interacting with Lewis Kaplan — the judge, who is not related — when they happened to work at the same, large company at the same time.
In general terms, Carroll’s attorney also characterized the Trump team’s push for consequences as just not credible, citing one case insisting that alleged grounds for recusal — meaning the withdrawal of a judge — be raised earlier rather than after a verdict. And in fact, work histories for both Carroll’s lawyer and the judge were already public.
“More specifically, I have no recollection from that time period of ever interacting with Your Honor on a case, participating with Your Honor in a client or case-related meeting, or attending a court proceeding with Your Honor. In fact, I remember no direct interaction from that time period with Your Honor at all,” Kaplan wrote, adding later in the document: “A jury of Donald Trump’s peers has now twice found him liable for sexual assault, defamation and $88 million in compensatory and punitive damages. There is no basis to set either verdict aside.”
Most of the penalties, around which Carroll’s lawyer expressed confidence there’d be collections, came from the more recent trial, when the jury decided on $83.3 million in penalties after Trump’s liability around additional allegations of defamation was established. In the new document, Carroll’s lawyer also pointedly mentioned the possibility of pursuing sanctions against Habba. Read it in full here.
